Need New System Advice!

[alx]

This is what the link pointed to:

Many people would prefer to use a 3.5" instead of the smaller 2.5" drives as the former are much cheaper. This is possible, but you need a special cable to connect the drive to your IDE controller. Additionally you should put some isolating material between the drive and the main board. Some people report termic problems but I did not notice anything.

Some dealers offer a set which contains the cable, isolating material.

If you are going to install an IDE-harddisk, regardless if 2.5" or
3.5", you should always consider that the it may not work flawlessly, if the drive and ROM-version have not been tested and approved by Commodore. Regarding the A1200, one should also remember that this Amiga has not been designed to hold 3.5" harddisk drives. The 2.5" drives, which are mainly thought for portable computers, may have some advantages (for example in power consumption, heat emission or shock
resistance) that could pay off because of the small keyboard case of the A1200 and the limited power supply. With the larger 3.5" drives, ventilation inside the computer might also be disturbed. If it is necessary to remove some shielding inside the A1200 to make the drive fit inside, even radio interference may occur.

To sum it up: if 3.5" harddisk drives could really be used in the
A1200 without any problems, you could be sure Commodore themselves wouldn't have used the slightly more expensive 2.5" drives in the A1200-HD.

AmigaOS could only recognise 4GB drives, but there are now ways around this - for instance upgrading to OS 3.5 will give large-drive support.  If you want to go the 3.5" route, an adaptor like this could probably do it - but check with someone who knows more first :-)

[Linchpin]

Cool, my mate owns a computer shop so those parts should not be a problem. What about browsing the internet? I have a cable modem, so i would need a LAN Connection.

[Linchpin]

Wow theese new amiga 1's are expensive! Think im going to wait!! :-o

[elendil]

In an a1200 with an accelerator and a harddrive you would be surfing using aga graphics, which means a max of 256 colours, 16 or so displayed in usable speed, which can make browsing kind of...not so fun, especially considering the low screen modes, so I would advice you to either spend a buckload on a big amiga or use your pc for surfing and your amiga to mess around with for fun. Also amigabrowsers are far from up to date. I did all my surfing on amiga browsers three years ago, but today it is simply impossible (I have not tried IB2.3, btw).

Also you need a monitor (or a tv) capable of displaying pal (15khz) signals if you want any graphical output (you do).

I am not trying to talk you out of it, quite the opposite, I suspect you will have more of a chance of staying if you know what you are getting yourself into, rather than think you have been framed after buying an a1200. For 30 pounds, hell, go for it. If you like what you see, find a cheap accelerator to increase your fun.

Sincerely,

-Kenneth Straarup.

[Linchpin]

I kinda like the old way that PC's looked :-) Your advice is well appriciated, i dont really use the internet for looking at "pictures", more for this kinda thing and IRC, etc. Thanks for your advice, any more ?? Kevin :-D

[Karlos]

Hi Linchpin!

I'm a bit late for a warm welcome, but have one anyway :-)

You might be able to pick up an A1200 2nd hand. People sometimes sell them, kitted out with harddisks, upgraded processor cards/ram and whatnot for silly prices...

I agree the new A1 a bit pricey, but it to put in perspective, the slowest A1 runs at 600MHz. IIRC, the fastest 'classic' 680x0 based amiga runs at 75MHz which are usually overclocked from 66 :-)

[alx]

You could try doing what I did and put classified adverts on this site, AmiBench and any other sites you find.  I did that and in a week got an offer at £40 for an A1200 030/40 8Mb, multisync monitor, CD-ROM, 270Mb HDD, Mouse, loads of games, loads of apps, a massive back-catalog of Amiga Format, external disk drive...

...it was good value :-D